Page 29 - Vol21Iss1

SEEC Magazine 29 February/March 2017
Brian and Jeremy had come to a SEEC Ministry Congress at Grace International
during their lunch hour to hear Simon Purvis speak. They were blown away at
the incredible revelation and insight that was released. If you have heard Brother
Simon Purvis, you would understand the feeling of drinking from a fire hydrant.
As they returned back to work that day, they were talking of how awesome it
was, but how few people were able to receive that insight. An hour in the middle
of the day in a small church in a small town was such a limiting format to bless
the Kingdom of God with such an incredible word. As they spoke of it, these two
phrases came out, “What if we, and what if God.” What if we started a podcast to
expose more people to this great revelation and what if God opens doors for us to
interview people in the Kingdom that may not have a platform that can reach
more people. That phrase hit me right between the eyes, I don't think I heard
much for a minute as that traversed around in my gray matter. I realized how
freeing those words were and how small I’ve made God in my mind.
I believe this is the year the Lord wants us to repent of small thinking and
unleash imagination. Small is not a bad thing in and of itself. The Bible tells us
not to “despise small beginnings.” God has, throughout history, used individuals
and small groups to accomplish amazing and miraculous things. But you will
find that those individuals and groups may have been small in numbers, but not
small in thinking. Small and incremental change are good things. They help us
move to a new place and grow in maturity moment by moment, but every good
and incremental victory should be a part of a larger vision and plan. The problem
comes when we let small thinking or incremental change limit ourselves or limit
what we think God is able or willing to do.
Many times small thinking comes from hard experiences that have boxed our
minds into a corner that both lacks expectation and anticipation. Because of
hardships, trauma, or difficulty we align ourselves with the little bit life chooses
to give us. The Lord spoke to me last year when we set our church on a 21 day
fast and prayer journey. He said, “You have been satisfied with gleaning instead
of harvesting.” My expectation was to pick up the leftovers of others instead of
accepting that acres are here for us to harvest and tend to. We have let ourselves
believe that our spirituality was directly related to our lack of numbers instead of
identifying and admitting that it was a “settled heart” that was at the core of the
issue. Being comfortable and settled in our hearts might bring temporary con-
tentment, but will never bring the lasting satisfactions that the John 10:10 abun-
dant life offers.
A key to overcoming the enemy of small thinking is to let the God-given gift
of imagination be used again for Kingdom purpose. Imagination is defined as
“the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external
objects not present to the senses.” Another definition is the “faculty of the mind
that is able to create and manipulate images.” God has given us the ability to
create beyond what our senses are experiencing at any moment or in other words
“call those things that be not as if they were.” (Rom 4:17). We have the ability
with our imagination to set the perimeter (boundaries) of our thought life as well
as the parameters (functions) of thought patterns. For too long we have allowed